Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon sent a video to a 13-year-old Leesburg boy with cancer.
Mathias Giordano was diagnosed with Osteosarcoma in July of 2012. He’s endured countless rounds of radiation and chemotherapy and had to have his right leg amputated below the knee.
“Yo, Mathias. This is Jimmy Fallon. I heard you’re a big fan. I think that’s cool,”
Team Mathias on Facebook.
When someone dies, we eulogize and celebrate her life. When she’s dying, we muse about her death. We talk about what could have been and should have been and weep for what never will be.
But Lauren Hill is still here. So she’d rather talk about life, about what is. And on Saturday morning, as she drove with her family from their home in Lawrenceburg, Indiana, to Cincinnati for Sunday’s game, she wants to talk about basketball.
“Is it 2:00 on Sunday yet? Is that the buzzer to start the game? Is the whistle being blown to toss the opening tip-off?” Lauren said. “I’m so glad it’s here, but I try not to think that far ahead. Right now, I’m thinking about going to practice and being with my team. We have a walk-through today.”
Hill is that woman you’ve heard about somewhere, maybe on ESPN, maybe on Facebook, maybe in the newspaper, perhaps on early morning TV. She’s the college freshman basketball player who was diagnosed with brain cancer her senior year of high school, after signing with Division III Mount St. Joseph University in Cincinnati.
She’s the girl whose parents, after her tumor spread and she was given only a few months to live, worked with her college coach, the opposing team’s coach and the NCAA to move her team’s opening game up by two weeks in the hopes that she will still be strong enough to suit up for one collegiate game.
The 19-year-old has been giving interviews and fighting publicly in the hopes of bringing attention to the rare form of brain cancer from which she will die. And she’s the girl whose story garnered so much attention that the site of Mount St. Joe’s Sunday game against Hiram College was moved to Xavier University’s Cintas Center, and the 10,000-seat arena sold out within a day.
But Hill is more than that freshman you heard about somewhere. She’s also a daughter to Lisa and Brent, and a big sister to Erin, 14, and Nathan, 17. She’s a soccer fan, has a creative eye and loves music, all types of music, just not screamo.
She’s a fan of the Harlem Globetrotters, was painfully shy before her diagnosis and is a wiz with Photoshop. She likes to shoot videos and edit them for her family, and you know that image that’s been going around online, the one of Lauren standing with her hands on her hips in her high school uniform, the one that was shot from behind and adorns #1More4Lauren images on Twitter? She designed that herself. “I’m really proud of that,” Hill said.
Since the date of the game was officially moved, Hill has been counting down the days, anticipating the opening tip-off, living for Nov. 2, some might say. But she knows as acutely as anyone that tomorrow is not promised, and when game day comes, she might be too sick or too weak or in too much pain to play.
The tumor causes migraines and has weakened the right side of her body. The medicine makes her nauseous; it makes her joints ache and her face and body swell and does little to dampen the pain. She has good days and awful days and she tries to make the most of both.
Around her family, she is stoic and pragmatic but sometimes breaks down beneath the weight of it all. She doesn’t know how tomorrow will go, so she rarely allows her mind to wander too many hours ahead. “I still can’t believe how big this is,” Hill said. “I feel like I’m in a dreamlike state most of the time. But I just try to think about right now.”
And right now is 24 hours before tip-off of the biggest game of her life.
Auburn wideout Sammie Coates formed a bond with a 12-year-old leukemia patient that goes beyond a star football player and an adoring fan.
A seven-year-old girl has shaved off all her beautiful red hair to show her support for young children suffering from cancer – including her little sister.
Hannah Gorsegner from Middletown, New Jersey, took the brave decision because she wanted to show her support for five-year-old sister, Natalie, who was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia in August 2012 and is now in remission.
Hannah, who said the day her sister was diagnosed was ‘the worst day of her life’, announced her decision to shave her head during an appearance on the Today show last month.
‘I’m going to shave my head,’ she said. ‘This is one of the ways I can help kids with cancer and inspire them to be brave.’
The shaving took place last Wednesday during a Shave For A Cure event held by the Arms Wide Open Childhood Cancer Foundation at the New York Stock Exchange.
Sister Natalie even got to join in and at one point used the clippers to shave her giggling sister’s head.
After Hannah’s head was completely shaved, she had glitter poured on over freshly bald head while the entire floor of the stock exchange applauded.
She wasn’t the only person to have her head saved that day and the others included several little boys and several businessmen who were supporting the cause.
The event raised over $350,000 for childhood cancer, and Hannah donated her red hair to wigs for kids.
‘I hope that someone’s going to be wearing my hair and that they’re going to feel happy about it.’ she told Today.
You are moved, momentarily. You shake your head and offer a quick prayer for Lauren or, more likely, for the blessing of your own kids’ good health. Then you can’t find your keys and soccer practice starts in 15 minutes and you have to stop at the cleaners and your car has no gas, and just like that the story of Lauren Hill retreats to the big warehouse in your head, joining the rest of the jumble. We are so well informed, yet so poorly versed.
You are who Lauren wants to speak with. It is to you she is dedicating the rest of her brief and precious life. Have a minute?
“One January night, I was having a meltdown,” she begins. “I asked God if I could do anything. I didn’t know what He sent me here for. I wanted to know what He sent me here for. Whatever you sent me here for, I’m ready to do.”
Does she have your attention now?
“What keeps me going is remembering why I’m here,” she says.
Lauren Hill is here for all of us. She’s a soul engine, and all she wants to do for the rest of her life is remind us how good we have it, and that we need to make that goodness matter, for everyone. That would include kids with the cancer she has, which is inoperable and incurable and swiftly fatal and receives very little attention.
To that end, she is doing all sorts of interviews, locally and nationally. Her cause has become a phenomenon, its apex occurring Nov. 2 when she plays in her first college basketball game. The game was moved from Nov. 15 at Hiram College to Xavier’s Cintas Center to accommodate a packed house and Lauren’s distilled timeline. The 10,000-seat arena sold out in less than a day.
Well, last Friday I had started a {this moment} post where I meant to post some photos from the race I ran last week and of the boy for whom I ran, but the moments were busy and full and I barely took time to sit at my desk for days.
Then Monday came and along with it, a Facebook post I had expected and feared. There was a moment when I held my breath and wished the words weren’t true. A moment when I realized that all these little intervals of 60 seconds just seem to be slipping away too fast. A moment when I wished I could give some of my remaining moments to someone else. My friend Mathias, who has been fighting cancer for two years still fights on. His family still fights on. His friends pray and we hope and we beg His mercy and His miracles because that is what we have left. There are no more treatment options.
I’m back here now with my cutesy {this moment} draft from last week staring me in the face. The cursor blinking at me, challenging me to write something profound and comforting as the moments tick on and I wipe away tears again wondering how there could possibly be any more left in my red, raw eyes. So, I will remember those moments tonight that led me to run a race I didn’t think I could, didn’t think I would, but knew I should. I will remember them, not to celebrate my accomplishment, because it wasn’t really mine. Because a little boy with a million dollar smile took hold of my heart and my head and pretty much set my feet in motion a week ago. For him and because of him, these moments happened. If not for him, I would have stayed in my bed that morning. I’m pretty darn sure of it.
First, there was that moment back in June when even though I thought I was done with long runs and even though it had been five years since I had run ten miles, I actually signed up to run the Army 10 Miler because there was a spot on a team called Team Mathias. I had no choice because I would move mountains for that smile.
The holidays are quickly approaching and why not buy gifts that give back? Shop with us and a portion of sales from all vendors will go toward Alex’s Army Childhood Cancer Foundation to support children and families batting childhood cancer!
How does 4 tickets (suite level in a box) for the Wizards vs Atlanta Hawks at the Verizon Center on November 25, at 7pm, parking pass included sound???
Come to our Holiday Shop for a Cure event and check out this and other awesome raffle and door prizes that we will be giving away!!!
We are so thankful to the Evergreen Fire Station for allowing us to use their banquet hall for tomorrow’s event. A few announcements regarding the venue, parking, etc:
***The fire station is currently doing a food drive to help stock a local food shelter
in our county, if you can please bring one or two canned goods to donate!
***Parking can be found in the back of the station, we will have Alex’s Army signs to guide you from the parking area to the entrance for our event.
***We need to keep in mind this is an active station and no loitering outside or around the trucks/equipment will be allowed.
Be sure to like our event page on FB to get all the important info and announcements!